Drinking parties

I seem to have opened a can or worms for myself by beginning to read the Additions to Esther.  The Harper Collins Study Bible – identified hereafter as HCSB – states that the king “gave a drinking party for the people of various nations who lived in the city” after a marriage feast.  And, what’s more, “Meanwhile, Queen Vashti gave a drinking party for the women in the palace where King Artaxerxes was.”  Drinking parties!!  The King James Version (KJV) says “Banquet.”

It seems to me that alcohol is an evil thing to-day, but I hadn’t considered the possibility that it could have been as much abused in Bible times.

I have just read a book about Captain James Cook (Cook by Rob Mundle).  On his journeys, Cook took copious amounts of alcohol which the men drank regularly.  He also allowed “drinking parties” on special occasions.  Often a man was punished for drunkenness.

In her historical novel The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks tells the reader that excessive imbibing of alcohol was prevalent in King David’s day too. The narrator is Nathan, the prophet, and here is an excerpt where he speaks of himself:

    “I drank it down, and signalled for another.  I drank that night till I lost myself, and with the Plishtim (i.e. Philistine) liquor, it did not take much.  Soon, it became a habit.  I would take a crater before we set out, to numb myself, and then on our return I would down as much as it took to secure oblivion.”  (p.107-108)  (Crater seems to be a cup; the word coming from resemblance to a volcano crater.)

The Secret Chord is really a history of David*, and it is pretty difficult to like David after reading what Brooks has come up with.

So, I see there is a need to confront this problem with my prayers rather than my disgust.

The discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, says of strong drink, “its slightest use is abuse...”  The whole paragraph is very strong and definite:

   "The cause of temperance receives a strong impulse from the cause of Christian Science: temperance and truth are allies, and their cause prospers in proportion to the spirit of Love that nerves the struggle.  People will differ in their opinions as to means to promote the ends of temperance, that is, abstinence from intoxicating beverages.  Whatever intoxicates a man, stultifies and causes him to degenerate physically and morally.  Strong drink is unquestionably an evil, and evil cannot be used temperately: its slightest use is abuse; hence the only temperance is total abstinence.  Drunkenness is sensuality let loose, in whatever form it is made manifest. 

Miscellaneous Writings p. 268:26

Joyce Voysey

*Ed: "The Secret Chord" is fiction, though researched by the author to represent truth as carefully as may be reconstructed from available documents, notably the Bible.